[FM23] Youth academy only - A welsh attempt at glory - Connah's Quay

[Backpackboi]

I would like to start off with the first attempt at telling the tales of my own Fm save. which hopefully will last more than 3 sessions, peer pressure should help with that.

The club i have chosen for this potentially painfull but for-filling ride is Connah´s Quay. I picked them for the reason they had the best youth setup outside of TNS. simple as that. Now onto the real problem. i have never played youth only but i assume having a good HOYD means better intakes, so first order of business is to sack my starting one as he was bad, you know normal first day things fire your fellow employees.

 

Second thing on the list would be to check out the starting team, which is a very unbalanced squad with a scary or exiting amount of old blokes depending on how i look forward to the pain with my intake in the league.

But to very good and workable ages in a gk and cb, but Ryan (cb) is allready out for 3 weeks with a sprained ankle 

[Backpackboi]

if anyone was wondering a quick comparison between the old Hoyd and the new one, beacuse apparently you can compare staff which i did not know

 

Anyways onto the start off the season and we start of with 2 tough and 2 fixtures i would imagine we should win. Both TNS and Bala in the first month, the teams predicted 1 and 2. but what a start to the season we had, 2 wins and 2 annoying draws even the one against TNS since we actually edged the game. But still a very inpiering first month in charge, maybe europe is in order for season 2. that would be ideal for money to upgrade the academy.

[Backpackboi]

we cuntinue on from what i would say is a good start to the season with 2 close games where we dont score and i think the goalie had a nap as we concede 4 in 15minutes to Newtown. we follow that up with a win against Aberystwyth and then we go through on penalties the Nathaniel mg cup only to get drawn to TNS, then we finish the month with another couple of bad results ending the month with 4 points in 5 games not particulary good, thankfully we follow that up with taking 8 points out of a potential 12 the next month, better but still not where i would like to be, we also get past a 2nd tier side in the welsh cup and lose in the quarter finals of the Nathaniel cup, but that was what the board ordered so a decent showing in my books.

We also manage to lose a player, like not on precontract but he just straight up left for another team which makes the allready small squad of 20 players even smaller at now 19 players, which is not ideal. he was luckily not one of the starters but at this point any players with the exception being the backup goalie would get a decent amount of playing time. On the topic of losing players we also have a player on loan which expires in december but our league is not done by then so im looking forward to losing another winger in my allready small attacking team...

 

After losing a player and a mixed bunch of results in the league we sit at a respectable 4th position on either head to head or name and considering we have played Abersytwyth once and won 2-0 i am afraid we are 4th based on name... but on the bright-side with having played slightly more than half the regular season games we look to be going into the top split and potentially fighting for a european spot which would be very delicious. 

[Backpackboi]

We finish out the pre split season a strong couple of games where we only lose 2, including TNS who are walking the league so they dont count. but we did play shockingly against the airbus, 3 draw including two 0-0 which ideally would be converted to wins but the other 4 games were solid wins and on the pluss side we also move on to the fourth round in the cup, however we do lose another player which means the team is now a huge squad of 18 players, i should probably move up the 1 player i have in the youth teams.

at this point with 10 games to go i think its safe to say that TNS will win the league as expected but the fight for the european spots is very much on, and after a very nice chat with the board where i went for the quantity beats quality types of arguments we se a increase in youth recruitment. which i dont think will have much effect this season where we get a "excellent intake" but i see 1 a and 2 c so i am not hugely optimistic. The a is atleast a winger which i suppose is a position i would like to get as only have 2 in the squad after losing 2, on the other side of things i belive i may have a slight issue with all the players leaving after the season so maybe just having a winger wont change much...

[Backpackboi]

we have the first youth intake of the save and i can say i am pleasantly pleased a lot of pa with a solid amount of ca. For once i agree with the game that this has potential to be a golden gen, probably gonna send them straight into the first team as players under the age of 19 do not have to be registered, maybe this is the influx the squad needed to finish out strong and push for continental football. not the best of personalities but a few players with decent determination. we were really light in midfield and wingers, not like we have depth anywhere so a lot of wingers and 2 solid midfielders will do us just well.

Picked out the lads i have the most hope and think will be the most influential, we start of with Keit Davies the midfielder rated as having the highest potential of all our new players, looks like he comes from the playmaker mold which is not something i have been using but might look into it with him coming onto the field. 2nd placed goes to the goalie Steven Haigh, as we are for sure losing the first choice so i think il just chuck him into even for the last games of the season. And at third place comes the right back Josh Buckley as he as the highest determination and is driven which will surely help speed up his development. 

[Backpackboi]

We finish off the championship phase and we do it in horrific shape winning 1 out of our 10 games and the fact that we were in a european fight til the last day is astonishing to me, but still a fourth place finish is something to build on, but the goals just dried up hopefully we can find some form upfront in the next season. also congratulations to TNS with a expected treble. 

[Backpackboi]

Regular season 2 done

we finish the pre split season, sadly not in the top split but we had every chance of being there then we might have lost 5 on the bounce, just might have. but overall the squad has been a mighty downgrade from last season which saw the board change their ask from top half to avoid relegation. But on the more positive side we have gotten 1 youth international call up so thats exciting, he played 55min before he was subbed off on a 5,5 rating and then was benched for 2 games to not get called up again but still exhilarating.

 

the board decided to give me a new contract this was during our one good spell so get scammed board. always nice to get a contract longer than 1 year and i got not just 2 years but 3 years so the club is now stuck with my project for 2 more seasons.

 

our youth intake is rated at 5*  but only 1 a, thankfully a striker which we desperately need as the one real player we have there is leaving on a free after this season. but if we get a striker or even a 5* intake only the fm gods can tell

 

quick look at our schedule so you to can see my pain of having the team give up on the top split dream